Cheap train fares too hard to find

THE head of one of the country's biggest train companies today told MPs that it was difficult for passengers to find the cheapest fares on his firm's website.

'You have to have patience. It's not easy,' Christopher Garnett, chief executive of East Coast Main Line operator GNER, told members of the House of Commons transport committee.

He admitted that it was much easier finding cheap fares on the website of low-cost airline, easyJet.

Mr Garnett said that passengers had to 'hunt' for the low fares on GNER and, although the company was trying to make things easier, it was about a year away from being able to make the cheaper fares more accessible.

Mr Garnett also revealed that his company did not send tickets to passengers with certain postcodes because of the high level of theft in some areas.
He and other rail chiefs were giving evidence to the committee about fares, as was transport minister, Derek Twigg.

Committee chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody told Mr Twigg that passengers had to wade through pages of different fares and that the whole ticketing system was 'absolutely chaotic'.

Mr Twigg replied: 'I don't accept that it's an absolutely chaotic system. I think it is complex. It's not such a terrible system that it's driving passengers away.

'It is clear from the number of people using the railways that prices are not deterring passengers - it's a more effective service than it was.'

David Mapp, the commercial director for the Association of Train Operating Companies, told MPs that he accepted that, for long distance operators, there was a degree of over-complication in the number of tickets.

He added that the cost of season tickets in the UK over the past 10 years had actually fallen in real terms.